The proliferation of 'Like' type boxes has gotten rather absurd. We at Bitsum Technologies now use 3: Twitter, Facebook, and Google+1 (added today). There are several more we haven't added: Digg, Reddit, etc.. I wonder, how many are too many? When I like something, should I click them all? Will one eventually win out over the others? (it doesn't seem so) ..
Google's new +1 may be the most pervasive yet, being added to all Google search results. Will the other search engines follow? Probably. If there is one constant in technology, it is the 'me too' syndrome. Every good idea is copied a hundred times over.
I am coming around to the point of believing that the only 2 worth having are Google's +1 and Facebook's like buttons, although my instructions for adding a TwitThis button to Blogger posts is one of the highest traffic pages on my blog.
ReplyDeleteUsers of most other networks and social bookmarking sites are in the habit of not actually using provided buttons and usually post to those sites using a bookmarklet or some other automated means already set up on their end. Those that do not have this set up already are the least likely to actually share your content and no amount of buttons is likely to change that.
Facebook users are an exception and have been conditioned to click the like button almost with a Pavlovian response to seeing it.
Google's +1 does not at this time provide a bookmarklet for sharing content and the +1 buttons on websites actually share to a different list than their users' actual content sharing stream. This makes it a bit less useful than content sharing on other sites, but for now it is all we have there. If this changes at some point in the future, I reserve the right to retract this comment referring to its usefulness.